Aftermath
by Animegirl1129
Summary: In which Charley is bitten and Peter isn't ready to give up. Slash.


Aftermath

_**Written in response to cottoncandy_bingo prompt: accident and hc_bingo prompt: wild card - attacked by a creature. First Fright Night fic - only saw the movie like 2 days ago, so yeah. Lyrics at the beginning belong to Lifehouse, and the title comes from there, as well. Characters not mine, please enjoy! Comments are awesome.**_

* * *

_If we can make it through the storm  
Become who we were before  
Promise me we'll never look back  
The worst is far behind us now  
We'll make it out of here somehow  
Meet me in the aftermath_

It was an accident.

Really, all of it, just a bunch of stupid, little mishaps that led up to this life and death _thing. _Or rather, life or un-dead thing.

Too much alcohol had led to going out in search of another vampire when they really should have waited - waited to get their shit together, to do their research - because the one lone vampire they'd been expecting turned out to be a nest of like a dozen crazy bloodsuckers and the closed up shop front they'd taken as their lair had actually been a condemned building.

They'd actually managed to successfully kill most of the creatures with a combination of stake-bullets and some well placed axe wielding. In fact, only one was still running around, trying to get at them when things kinda went to hell.

"I got this one," Charley calls, crossbow aimed at the last vampire. He waves Peter off, to go start the work needed to torch the place.

Only, well, he doesn't. Because he breaks through a rickety floorboard and ends up ankle-deep in rotting wood. The splinters dig into his skin and draw blood and he feels something pop that suggests he won't be putting weight on it anytime soon, but those things are the least of his worries because the vampire he'd been closing in on pounces at him. It sends him sprawling to the ground and then there's something heavy on his back, pinning him down and sharp, sharp teeth are biting down on his shoulder and fuck fuck fuck, no. Not this, not now. Not ever.

There's a shot from somewhere, Peter stepping in and firing at the vampire he finds on top of Charley but the stake misses its target. It embeds in the vampire's stomach, but that won't kill it - not by a long shot. The thing screeches in pain and runs away, ducks out into the dark of the night and escapes.

"Charley," Peter's saying, eyes wide when they land on his bloodied shoulder. He knows what it means. "Charley. Fuck," he adds, eloquently, and goes racing off in the direction that the vampire fled in. They need that vampire. They need to kill it to turn Charley human again.

But, there's no trace.

He's gone.

And the fucking bloodsucker took Charley's humanity with him.

Peter punches hard at the cement wall outside of the building, relishes the pain in his hand because it takes away some of the crushing pressure on his chest and he knows what he has to do.

"Peter?" Charley is calling out for him, still stuck in the floor. He's choking on his own anxiety because he knows what this means, too. "I'm gonna turn."

"I know."

"And... and... and... you'll have to stop me. You can't let me hurt my mom. Or Amy. Or..."

Peter ignores that sentence and drops to his knees next to the only friend he's had in forever, smashes at the wood with the butt of his gun until it gives and Charley's leg is freed. It's twisted and bloody, but that's comparatively low on Peter's list of worries right now.

"I know."

"We talked about this."

"I know, I fucking know, okay?"

Only, well, that's not the plan that Peter's planning to go with. They'd both been vehemently opposed to the idea of living (ha!) as vampires, so there'd been mentions made about what should be done if either of them ended up bitten. Those mentions had involved stakes.

But, fuck, Peter's not sure he can do it.

"Come on, just get it over with."

"We could still catch him, stake him. Then you'd turn back." They've taken to dipping all of their ammo in holy water blessed by St. Michael (another helpful eBay purchase) to make sure that any of the vampire's victims are turned back. It's lessened the ranks significantly and it can help here, too. "We can find him."

"We might _not_ find him. I'd be stuck like this."

"Would it be so bad?" Peter counters, which is ridiculous considering he's spent most of his life hating vampires with every fiber of his being for what they did to him. "Live forever, super powers. Fucking would probably be spectacular with all of those heightened senses, yeah?"

Charley rolls his eyes, stares at him like he can't believe he's saying this stuff. "Yeah, sounds great except for the killing people part."

But there have to be ways around that, too. Even if it means going all _Twilight _and trying for animals or blood banks or shit like that. It'd be worth it if it meant they had another chance to stake the vampire who bit Charley.

"Come back to the loft with me. We'll do this there."

Charley, thankfully, agrees. Peter is grateful - there he can drown himself in Midori and buy himself some time to talk Charley into another of his plans, can lock Charley in the panic room if he needs to. So, he pulls the boy to his feet - foot - and helps him hobble back to the car.

The ride is silent, and so is the walk up to the Penthouse, aside from some probing questions from the security guard that Peter shrugs off with a string of voluminous curses.

Finally, he sets Charley down on one of the oversized chairs and goes for the bar. He's clutching the bottle of green liquid for dear life and takes a long swig before he takes a detour for the first aid kit.

"What's the point?" Charley asks him, when he sits down on the floor in front of him, grabbing for his ankle.

"Not bleeding on my fucking furniture is the point."

Charley scoffs. "That'll be a moot point soon enough."

"Go take a shower. There's no point in washing this off when you're covered in vampire ashes," Peter says, pointedly ignoring Charley's comment because he knows that it won't be a moot point so long as he can help it. "And stay out of this room. The sun'll be up soon and..." And he doesn't have to say the rest. He stands, pulls all the curtains on the floor to ceiling windows just in case. "Shower," he says again. "I'll join you."

There are protests, but Peter seals his mouth over Charley's in a desperate 'please shut up' kiss and drags him there anyway.

"Look," Peter says, downing another glass of alcohol once they're showered and dressed and patched up, "don't ask me to do this. I... I'm not being a coward, I just... I've lost enough people I care about," which is the closest he's ever gotten to telling Charley how he feels. "And I can't, I won't, do this."

"But you'll let me become one of them? That's better?"

"Yes. Yes, it fucking is because we can find that goddamned bloodsucker and turn back. We'll have forever to do it."

Charley looks at him curiously, as the words register. "'We'?"

He nods. "Yeah, you and me. Vampiric Vampire Hunters. New twist on an old classic, yeah?"

"You won't be able to do your show," Charley points out because not showing up on film would kind of complicate things and not showing up in mirrors would really confuse his staff - even though it would lead to really awesome stunts. "You'd have to leave."

"Fuck the show," he answers because who cares about the bullshit magic act when the alternative is staying with Charley. "Fuck all of it. I need my Midori, my cigarillos and you and I'm good."

"And, and the blood thing?"

"We can feed off each other until I figure something out," at least it seemed like that's what Jerry and Amy were sort of doing when they were rubbing it in Charley's face. It should work for them, too. "Even if we can't stay here, I still have contacts and plenty of money."

Charley seems okay with that plan, whatever it may entail, and nods. "What if we don't remember we're supposed to be hunting the one who bit me? What if he can control me like Jerry could control Ed and Amy and everyone else? What if we're not us anymore?"

Peter pushes him down onto the couch and cuts off all of these 'what if's?' with a sound kiss. "That won't happen."

"You're sure?"

"Yes."

"So, what? I just bite you?"

"Well," Peter counters, glancing down at the willing nineteen year old beneath him. "We could be doing something less serious when you do. How are those heightened senses coming along?"

Charley actually laughs, which Peter will count as a win given tonight's clusterfuck of events. "You smell really good," he says, shaking his head at himself as he does because it's kind of a ridiculous thing to say. Not that ridiculous, though, because Peter kisses him again and his hands start wandering and by the time the sun sets, they're both among the ranks of the undead.

It takes a week to settle into all the changes they've gone through and they have moments where the bites just pulse inexplicably with pain (Charlie's is on his shoulder, but Peter's is low on his hip and proves more aggravating than his leather pants ever did). Peter secures a food source from some less savory black market contacts who'd helped him obtain the rarer items among his vast supernatural collection, and Charley makes up a story to placate his mother and his ex-but-still-friend, Amy as well as an excuse to cancel all of Peter's show for the foreseeable future.

A week, and then they start the hunt.

There are a couple of near misses - times when one of them almost slips and attacks someone, it's hard not to do that - but the other always manages to see it coming and distract them. They go a month without a solid lead. Operating only at night kind of limits their activities, as do the other pesky vampire rules and weaknesses (kind of hard to invade a potential nest when you're not invited in; kind of hard to wield a crucifix or bottles of holy water when they pose just as much of a threat to you). It takes another week to refine than lead into hard evidence of the vampire they're looking for and two days more to make a plan.

When they go in, it's with the element of surprise - they called the building manager and asked permission to check the place out, said they were thinking of buying the place - and enough protective gear to outfit a hockey team so that they can effectively use their weapons.

Their vampire is not alone. It has two more with it, rebuilding its ranks just as their lead had claimed, and that can't be allowed to continue.

"You've got this," Peter says, as he handles the two followers, making use of his improved reflexes and strength to get the job done quickly.

And this time, Charley does have the situation under control. He distracts the thing with a couple of arrows from his crossbow, and then subs in the stake gun, and just like that it's over. The thing is shrieking the usual high pitched screech of a dying vampire, flailing around and smoking as it slowly turns to ash. Exactly what should have happened when they did all of this before.

The change is immediate. They both feel it, feel the blood-lusty parts of them leave their bodies and wisp away like smoke, leaving them both lying in the floor and disproportionately exhausted by the return to being human.

"We did it," Charley sighs, sitting up enough to scoot his way over to Peter, who's still sprawled out on the floor.

"We fucking did it," he echoes, reaching up to pull Charley down to him in a quick, joyful, hopelessly relieved kiss that's reminiscent of their first. "Ah, see? Told ya. Killed the fucker."

"Let's not do that again, though."

Peter laughs, one hand settled in Charley's hair. "What? Not a fan of vampire sex? I thought it was pretty damn good myself."

Charley shakes his head and wonders, not for the first time, why he likes Peter at all. "You're impossible."

"But you stick around anyway."

"That I do," he concedes. "I did like the biting though." He presses his fingers against the bite marks he left on Peter's hip and earns a surprised groan from the other man. "You?"

"Mm, there can _definitely_ be more biting."

Charley curls his fingers around Peter's hand and hauls him back to his feet. They're both just a little bit beaten up from the fight and exhausted from the change, so the biting thing probably won't happen tonight, but that doesn't mean they have to stick around this place. "C'mon," he says. "Let's go home."

"Home," Peter echoes. "Sounds good."


End file.
